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In this age of instant digital news, in which journalism faces revolutionary changes, some things do not change — most notably readers’ expectations of excellence in English language usage.

Rarely a day goes by without several Toronto Star readers emailing the public editor’s office to point out spelling, grammar and usage errors that slip through the writing and editing process and make it into print in the newspaper, website and tablet app.

“From a high school newspaper this may be forgivable, but from a newspaper with Canada’s largest circulation, it is not,” one annoyed reader said in a recent email pointing out several such errors. “If you require a proofreader, I will be happy to forward my CV.”

Of course readers have always sent such snide emails to editors, public editors and news ombudsmen — and indeed, to the individual journalists who made the mistakes. While these are new times in journalism, this is an age-old problem, one that, alas, would seem to be getting worse, not better, in our era of digital disruption.

Readers have long held journalists to high writing and editing standards and believe we have a significant responsibility to those standards. As one irked reader who called attention recently to some grammatically incorrect sentences said, “Making errors like this is a great disservice to the many readers of the Star, many of whom are trying to learn English.”

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Some of the many grammar and spelling mistakes readers point out are indeed egregious and embarrassing; others, less so. But no matter how serious or silly the mistakes, the degree of diligence and passion Star readers bring to this matter never fails to amaze me.

I have to say it feels somewhat unfair for any public editor to call attention to grammar and spelling mistakes and other misuses of our language at a time when newsrooms across North America have cut back extensively on copy editing and proofreading positions and writers are expected to become their own best editors.

But, in my role at the frontlines of fielding readers’ concerns, I well understand that these reasons have little impact with readers. Whatever cutbacks newsrooms have been hit with, whatever new challenges multi-tasking journalists face, readers still expect excellence in how journalists use the language.

I can explain to readers that journalists are merely human after all – and certainly even the most caring and careful journalists make mistakes. I can explain that copy editing and proofreading is becoming nearly extinct in most newsrooms. I can explain that news is being published by-the-minute and the reality is that the faster we work and the more we multitask, the more likely we will err, especially on the relatively small stuff. I can point out, from personal experience, how truly hard it is for writers to see their own errors in their own work. We were all better when we had great copy editors to save us.

None of that really cuts it with readers, however.

“When there are errors, even small ones, it can’t help but reduce the readers’ confidence in its accuracy,” said reader Eleanor Batchelder, a loyal and diligent reader who has sent us a great many emails in recent years drawing attention to language usage errors and other mistakes in the Star.

Batchelder, who is always gracious and constructive in pointing out such mistakes, told me this week she also reports such errors to several other publications.

“The New York Times has many fewer mistakes than most. The Star is, in my opinion, pretty good, but not in the highest category,” said Batchelder, 76, who said she makes the effort to alert the Star to such errors because “I want you to know that we do care.”

Of course, we care too. And while I really don’t know what the solution is to creating a more perfect Toronto Star on all its platforms, I’m sure of two things. One, we must never stop striving for excellence in writing and editing. And two, we must never stop paying heed to engaged readers who care so deeply about their Star.

On the subject of engaged readers, I want to thank the dozens of readers who responded to my recent “crowd sourcing a correction” column regarding a question about the year of a photo showing the Beatles performing in Toronto. While a couple of readers said they believed the photo was taken at the band’s 1964 concert — as the Star had recently reported — the large majority presented solid and convincing evidence that the photo was taken at the 1966 concert. Most convincing were those diehard fans who provided documentation indicating that the guitars shown in the photo were not used by the band in 1964 so the photo had to have captured the Fab Four in 1966. We concur and will correct the error in our photo archives.

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